DAY 1 OF KILLGORE HEARING OFFERS SNEAK PEEK AT UGLY UNDERWORLD

And not, I should add (given the twisted subject matter), in a good way.

In retrospect, the first day of the preliminary hearing in the death of Brittany Killgore strikes you as the first scenes of an underground snuff movie that you’d have to be paid to watch to the end.

Adding to the surreality was the absence of an opening argument, the prosecutor’s overarching theory of the case that opens a real trial.

Without preamble, Channy Tal, a young Fallbrook woman, began testifying about helping Killgore, 22, pack up her apartment on April 13.

In the early evening, Tal overheard a surprise visitor she identified as “Ivan” persistently invite Killgore, who had recently filed for divorce from her deployed Marine husband, on a dinner cruise. Killgore initially said no, but later called Ivan’s pregnant girlfriend, known as “Dee,” and received good-natured “permission” to go on the date. Killgore, possibly swayed by Ivan’s promise to help her move, went to Tal’s apartment to borrow a party-style dress.

Shortly after Ivan was to pick her up, Killgore texted Tal one word: “Help.” After that cryptic plea, Tal believes, Killgore lost control of her phone. (The giveaway, Tal testified, was that a text used the affirmative “yes” instead of Killgore’s customary “yeah.”) Several odd texts, and Killgore’s failure to call in person, further persuaded Tal that someone was pretending to be Killgore. After an anxious night, Tal and Elizabeth Hernandez, Killgore’s “best” friend, contacted authorities.

Following Tal on the stand was Hernandez. Suddenly, the plot started thickening in a creepy way.

According to Hernandez, she and Killgore were fairly regular guests at the Fallbrook house of Dorothy “Dee” Maraglino, a woman who openly lived the “BDSM” (Bondage, Discipline, Sadism, Masochism) lifestyle. Maraglino’s “slave” was Jessica Lynn Lopez. Maraglino, on the other hand, was submissive to the “Master” (aka Ivan aka Marine Staff Sgt. Louis Ray Perez).

Hernandez and Killgore weren’t participants in kinky stuff, Hernandez testified, but they evidently did not find it scary or repugnant, at one point playing around with an electric swatter.

With Killgore’s tired-looking parents in the front row of the Vista courtroom, Hernandez confirmed that Killgore was having an affair with Hernandez’s brother (but she denied Killgore had slept with Hernandez’s husband, as Maraglino had taunted) and that by April the relationship between the two friends had become strained.

In the company of her S&M friends, Hernandez recalled references to Killgore as a “disease” and joking suggestions to get “rid” of her.

Brandi Taylor, a woman who had lived for several months in Maraglino’s house, rounded out the picture of domestic weirdness, including décor such as an overhead beam with which to suspend chained “girls.” Taylor described “needle play” in which Maraglino used Lopez, described in testimony as a “pain slut,” as a human pin cushion.

It was Lopez who penned an obscene confession in which she admitted going “Dexter” on Killgore and then trying to dismember her with power tools. (Investigators have indicated this admission may be the ultimate form of submission to the will of her masters.)